And yes, I’ve only been getting my news through the internet for the past year and a half. Better than watching Fox News, right? 
It just occured to me the other day that I’ve never really heard anyone say the man’s name.
Puh-TRAY-us
Pet-tray-us.
Peh-TRAY-us
Thanks!
Hmm… “Pe-tray-us.” I’ll be he got a lot of good-natured ribbing in the early days of his military career, having a last name that rhymes with “betray us.” 
It rhymes with “Betray us,” which, if the Administration has its way, he will.
I just have to say I absolutely love the name “General Patraeus”. It sounds like he should be a Decepticon.
To me, the name “General Petraeus” looks and sounds like a New Testament bible character, perhaps a governor of a small Roman province.
[helpful mode]The Voice of America has a pretty good pronunciation guide on its website with a phonetic spelling and a sound clip. The sound clips are in Real Audio, but you should still get a pretty good idea of how to pronounce these names. This should be useful if you get your news from printed sources.[/helpful mode]
Robin
Cool, thanks MsRobyn! Definitely booking that site.
Oh, and for those of you who don’t like Real’s BS, I highly recommend Real Alternative. Googling it usually turns up a download site pretty quickly, and the Wikipedia article about it has direct links, IIRC. I’ve never had a problem using it (it’s free, no ads or spyware, and plays all Real Media codecs).
Sorry, Knuckles, I didn’t see your post before posting mine. I didn’t mean to see your thunder.
So what ethnicity is “Petraeus”? Roman?
I can never figure out these phonetic alphabets. Would it be
pEtrAjes
in X-SAMPA (en.wikipedia.org)?
His father was Dutch.
I’ve always thought it sounded downright Biblical… “And then God sent Petraeus to lead the Americans into furious battle, and the evil-doers were smitten, and the Israelites retrieved their Mercedes-Benzes and drove them with great jubilation.”
Hmmm. . . apparently my Bible-writing skills are weaker than I expected. :dubious:
Or… “I see you have come prepared, Mr. Bond. Sadly, your effort has been wasted, as my nuclear warheads have already been launched. Now all the world shall bow to me-- GENERAL PETRAEUS!”
Harry Shearer on his Le Show program never fails to point out that it does rhyme with “betray us.” He also likes calling the leader of Pakistan “Perv.”